Toyota posted a record net profit of $17.9 billion for the past fiscal year as the world's biggest car maker saw a recovery in major markets .

However, the Japaneses motoring giant forecast a 2.4 per cent drop in net profit for the year to March 2015, below analyst estimates, as the foreign exchange movements have now turned against it.

The world’s best-selling car maker said today that it expects to post 1.78 trillion yen ($17.50 billion) in net profit for the financial year ending in March 2015.

That’s below the 2.03 trillion yen mean estimate by analysts .

For the fourth quarter that ended in March, Toyota’s net profit fell 5.4 per cent to 297.0 billion yen, well below the average analyst forecast of 352.9 billion yen.

Net profit for the 12 months ended on March 31st - widely expected to be a record year - grew 89.5 per cent to 1.82 trillion yen.